Great fun overcomes bugs and translation issues.
Stalker was great fun. It's what you get if you roll up FEAR and Oblivion and then back date the graphics a year or three. It's not the perfect game but it was fun and the more I played it the more fun it was.
Sound is good and at times great. Graphics are good enough. Not world changing, but they'll do. They are the drawback to the game though, this game deserved better.
The program was stable, never crashing on me (by the 5th patch, it ought to be right?) but it could have used some optimizations. It at times dragged down to brief pauses. I'm guessing more was going on than I had memory for, but it was still unexpected when heavy character scenes seemed to have no issues, but walking alone in a small corridor would pause for up to several seconds.
The mood is great, and the first time you feel that F.E.A.R. influcene you'll be hooked. It was good enough for me to think about playing again to find all the secrets and to try out other endings.
The gameplay has a lot of options to it, you can run through the main quest and be done in a few days or you can run all the side quests and spend much longer in the game. But this is where some of the stability issues come in. I could not complete one main quest because of a game play bug. This forced me to miss a good chunk of the game.
Stalker's designers assumed the player is smart enough to figure out most of the puzzles with much explanation, but just how many tails do you have to collect before you can cash in? I never had enough. Maybe a bug, maybe not. A frustration just the same.
The weapons and armor suffer some bad descriptions. Is "insuitable" really "suitable" or is it "unsuitable," you'll never know for sure.
All in all though, bugs aside, this game was very good and I look forward to the prequel coming out soon. It's looking like a must get title.
The only real gameplay gripe I have that isn't a cultural issue is looting. Most of the enemies are wearing armor, you'd think you could strip that off. Or at the very least patch your own. It's not an option. Repairs would have added a nice dynamic and would give you a lot more reason to return to town.
Special notes:
No DVD in the drive requirement. This is excellent!
Save whenever you want. (This should always be the case, but it seems these days it needs to be pointed out.)
Freak &*(^(&^ makes for great fun
A little more hand holding would help, but at the same time, it's nice to play something that's not dumbed down to the point of being on auto pilot (Gears of Snore I'm looking at you, but you're too dumb to realize it.)
The score:
NO DVD DONGLE requirement. You can play this game without hunting down the DVD. Way to go guys!!! +1
Gameplay / Quest bugs: -1
Translation issues: -.5
Graphics -.5
Final tally 9 out of 10. A great game that's worth the effort. Especially now that you can find it for $30 and less.